Challenge 21 Response

[smeddley]

Title: The Ghost int he Castle (for lack of anything more creative)
Author: ME! Um, Smeddley
Challenge: 21
Rating: PG for two instances of a mild swear word
Notes: I have no idea where this came from. I seem to like rambling narratives, though. It's voice posted in abridged version in my journal if you're too lazy to read... ~.^

Comments

[kailita]

This is a very interesting concept, and very well put together (I think that's the right phrasing...). I guess a knight could say "gizmo" and "crap" if his vernacular modernized with the times from listening to modern day people talk, though it seemed a little stretched in some places. But I like that your narrator has such a distinctive "voice," even outside of the modern slang. His musings were at least thought-provoking, especially the fly-on-the-wall bit and the possibility that he could be in hell.

The idea that your memory doesn't expand after death was a great one. And it would make sense that he could block out the memories, since he didn't want to remember them in the first place and he has 564 years of a buffer zone of emptiness to help him out. (Though you might need some kind of explanation on why he can't remember his own name but he can remember the exact number of years it's been since he died.) You've got an interesting narrator and a nice little mini-mystery here, and I like the way you put it together and made the story progress. Even though a lot of the "story" was actually just explanation and background, it wasn't boring and it seemed to (pardon my use of the F word) flow.

You ended it on a sad note, but I thought it worked. Nice job!

[smeddley]

Yeah, especially when I was reading it I was worried the tone was a *bit* too modern. Would it be better if I made it clearer that the people have been poking around for many years (twenty or thirty) and have him say something along the lines of "I'm even talking like them now!" or... something...

Oooh, great point! He should be more vague on the number of years. I'd say if he said "five or six hundred years" that would be reasonable. So it's not like he remembers, but he's got a decent ballpark.

Thanks!